In 1964, a report was issued by the Council of Presidents of Washington State baccalaureate institutions stating that another college was needed in the state to balance the geographical distribution of the existing state institutions. This report spurred the 1965 Washington legislature to create the Temporary Advisory Council on Public Higher Education to study the need and possible location for a new state college.[3]

In 1965-66, the Temporary Advisory Council on Public Higher Education (assisted by Nelson Associates of New York) concluded "at the earliest possible time a new college should be authorized", to be located at a suburban site in Thurston County within a radius of approximately 10 miles (16 km) from Olympia.

Evergreen's enabling legislation - HB 596 (Chapter 47, Laws of 1967) - stated that the campus should be no smaller than 600 acres (240 ha), making it then the largest campus in the state as well as the first public four-year college created in Washington in the 20th century.

On January 24, 1968, The Evergreen State College was selected from 31 choices as the name of the new institution. On November 1, 1968, Charles J. McCann assumed the first presidency of the college. McCann and the founding faculty held the first day of classes October 4, 1971 with 1128 students. McCann served from 1968 until stepping down to join the faculty June 6, 1977 when former Governor Daniel J. Evans, who signed the legislation creating Evergreen, assumed the presidency. Evans left the president's office abruptly in 1983 when he was appointed to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy created by the death of Senator Henry M. Jackson. The largest building on campus is named in honor of Evans, the Daniel J. Evans Library Building. The entrance to the campus bears McCann's name, the Charles J. McCann plaza. In 2004, the college completed the 170,000-square-foot (16,000 m2) Seminar II building, and a significant remodel of the Daniel J. Evans Library is now complete.

In 1999, Mumia Abu-Jamal was invited to deliver the keynote address by audiotape for the graduating class at the college. The event was protested heavily.

The campus contains a large tract of undeveloped land along the Puget Sound waterfront, much of it being second growth evergreen forest, which is of use to the students and faculty of the campus as a research and natural area. The entire campus comprises about 408 hectares (1,010 acres), much of it forested land. This total includes 11 hectares (27 acres) of southern Puget Sound tidelands.[4] In addition to the main campus, there is also an organic farm as well as an urban campus located in Tacoma, Washington.

360° panorama on the campus of The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. This panorama features the Daniel J. Evans Library and the clock tower set in a brick courtyard lined with trees.

According to U.S. News & World Report's 2009-2010 college rankings, Evergreen is ranked #1 in the West for Undergraduate Teaching at Masters Universities. It was ranked as the 5th best public college in the Masters West Category "a region stretching from Texas to the Pacific." It was also ranked as #29th overall in the Masters West Category outranking other state schools such as Central Washington University and Eastern Washington University, as well as many other public schools in the region such as Humboldt State University, Boise State University, Eastern Oregon University, Western Oregon University, and Southern Oregon University.[5] Evergreen is also among the top colleges in the nation for offering the best first-year experiences to freshmen, which entails building into the curriculum first-year seminars or other programs that bring small groups of students together with faculty and staff on a regular basis.[6] Author and former New York Times education editor Loren Pope cites Evergreen as one of two public colleges in the United States in his book Colleges That Change Lives. In addition, The Princeton Review lists Evergreen as one of the Best Western Colleges for 2009-2010.[7]

The Evergreen State College is the home of the Longhouse Education and Cultural Center. The Longhouse exists to provide service and hospitality to students, the college, and surrounding Native communities. With a design based on the Northwest Indigenous Nations' philosophy of hospitality, its primary functions are to provide a gathering place for hosting cultural ceremonies, classes, conferences, performances, art exhibits and community events. The Longhouse provides the opportunity to build a bridge of understanding between the regions' tribes and visitors of all cultures. The public service mission of the Longhouse is to promote indigenous arts and cultures through education, cultural preservation, and economic development.

It is also the administrative home for the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. The Institute’s mission is to carry out practical, non-partisan research—at legislative direction—on issues of importance to Washington State. The Institute conducts research using its own policy analysts and economists, specialists from universities, and consultants. Institute staff work closely with legislators, legislative and state agency staff, and experts in the field to ensure that studies answer relevant policy questions.

Other notable public service centers on campus are:

Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education

The Evergreen Organic Farm annual crop bed space comprises 38,000 square feet (0.35 ha), slightly less than 1 acre (0.40 ha). The farm also produces apples and other perennial food crops, and tends to a flock of hens. Produce is sold to the Evergreen community through CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) shares, or from a farm-stand on Red Square every Tuesday and Thursday from 11am to 5pm during the growing season. Produce is sometimes sold to campus food services Aramark and the Flaming Eggplant Cafe. Excess produce is available to students in the interdisciplinary program, titled "The Practice of Sustainable Agriculture."

Proceeds from the sale of the crops are used to finance farm projects, as well as purchase seeds and equipment. Two of the greenhouses, the cooler, compost shed, farm fencing and orchard are just a few projects made possible from farm sales. Another use for money generated on the farm is to fund student projects. Many of these projects are related to horticultural aspects of food crops.

The farm production area is divided into sections that are used to delineate cropping areas for specific types of crops. The farm practices a strict five year crop rotation. The rotating of crops creates plant diversity over time as opposed to plant diversity in space. The rotation has four general crop categories with each category occupying a given space for one growing season.

Crop rotation is just one method the farm uses to maintain diversity in the field. Other methods employed are the use of undersown ground covers and inter-cropping different types of vegetable crops. Creating diversity in the field is one of the cornerstones of sustainable agriculture. Diversity provides non-toxic, sustainable crop protection against plant diseases and insect pests.

The Evergreen Organic Farm hosts a large composting facility that composts all compostables from the campus. It also hosts a Biodiesel facility, a community garden, demeters garden, and a large farmhouse that was partially built by students.

The Evergreen State College has 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land that is mostly second growth forest. The entire campus serves as a natural laboratory for scientific field research and provides inspiration for creative work. Throughout the 1,000-acre (400 ha) forest there are multiple trails leading to a variety of locations throughout the reserve and to Evergreen Beach. The coastal habitat is characterized by steep bluffs, gravelly beaches with many washed-up logs, and the marine intertidal zone which extends up to 150-foot (46 m) out into Puget Sound's Eld Inlet during low tides. Evergreen has approximately 3,300-foot (1.0 km) of untouched beach. Students use the beach for scientific study and as a place to get away from their studies and relax. There are multiple trails leading to the beach and a small road that leads to the only building at the beach and small boat ramp. The bluffs range from 15 to 60 feet (5 to 20 meters) in height.[4]

The main library on the Evergreen State College campus is the Daniel J. Evans Library, named after the former governor that signed the legislation that founded Evergreen, and was also the school's second president. The library is home to over 750,000 print and media items. It also houses journal titles. The library also maintains special collections of rare books, archival material, and government documents. The library also hosts a number of small viewing rooms. The Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning Center (QuaSR), a tutoring center for the sciences, is located on the first floor of the library. The library is located in the Information Technology wing of the Daniel J. Evans Library Building. This wing is also the home for Media Services and a large Academic Computing center.

Evergreen is unique in that undergraduate students select one 16 credit program for the entire quarter rather than multiple courses. Full-time programs will encompass a quarter's worth of work in everything related to that program concentration, by up to three professors. There are no "majors": students have the freedom to choose what program to enroll in each quarter for the entire duration of their undergraduate education, and are never required to follow a specific set of programs. Evergreen is on the "quarter" system, with programs lasting one, two, or three quarters. Three quarter programs are generally September through June.

At the end of the program the professor writes a one page report ("Evaluation") about the student's activity in the class rather than a letter grade, and has an end-of-program Evaluation conference with each student. The professor also determines how many credits should be awarded to the student, and students can lose credit.

In order to obtain a Bachelor of Arts, a student must complete 180 credits.

In order to obtain a Bachelor of Science, a student must complete 180 credits, 72 of which need to be in science, with 48 of those noted as upper division. This requirement can be satisfied by one year of upper-division science.

Evergreen's Evening and Weekend Studies Program makes it possible for students who cannot attend full-time, day classes to get a Bachelor of Arts degree by attending on a part-time basis through night and weekend interdisciplinary programs.

The current Evergreen President is Thomas L. (Les) Purce. On March 16, 2015, the Board of Trustees took action to name George Bridges as Evergreen’s next president. He will officially take office on October 1, 2015.

Student groups include The Cooper Point Journal (Student-run newspaper),[8]KAOS-FM (Evergreen's community radio station),[9] Evergreen Socialist Alternative (Part of the national Socialist Alternative organization),[10] Giant Robot Appreciation Society (Japanese animation club),[11] a branch of the International Solidarity Movement, The Evergreen Shellfish Club,[12] Evergreen State Permaculture,[13] Freedom First Dance Collective (formerly known as the Evergreen Dance Co-Op), The Evergreen Players' club (Magic the Gathering), Hip-Hop Congress, Abolish Cops and Prisons, and Riot to Follow Theater Productions; Evergreen Young Americans for Liberty,[14] among many others.